August 24, 2011 - Had lunch recently with longtime friend and fellow senior. As often happens with we generationalists, the topic quickly went to the economy.

Pete started it with, "These people today don't know what a recession is. I stood on a stool washing dishes in my dad's diner in Pontiac at age six and left that stool only to go to school and sleep."

Nobody works like that today, he inhaled. So, I told of having to wear my sister's hand-me-down clothes made of logo flour sacks, using the three-holer a half mile from the house, down a dirt lane, in snow storms and pushing a big sow aside so I could get some of her slop to eat. She didn't like it either.

Pete: "These people think a drop in stocks and bonds will ruin this country. All we could do is read about stocks and bonds having something to do with penalties for criminal behavior."

"Right, Pete. All the girls wore dresses made from flour sacks with logos, and I even had to wear them as I grew up in the Depression."

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If there was something good about the Depression of the 1929-1941 years it might be the lesson taught about saving.

Our basement, garage, sheds, porches and other so-called empty spaces are full of "savings.'' Over a couple walls downstairs are 61 baby food jars of nails, screws, washers and other small, "necessary" items.

Not long ago, I started ridding myself of over 400 neckties.

My downstairs work bench has coffee cans of bolts and nuts and drill bits.

A couple shelves hold small and not-so-small paint cans.

When I was 10, carpenters were working on a house across the road. To get rid of me, the boss-man handed me a claw hammer and "let" me pull nails from boards they had removed.

That was my first "job" and I was proud of it. I've been pulling used nails from boards every since.

Saving!

Depression!

Get it?

And please keep this in mind . . . It took a World War to get our economy rolling.

That experience must have been absorbed deeply in Washington, D.C.

I wish our politicos would get on with Plan B.

The generations coming along need other economy growers.

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I quit using e-mail shortly after getting it. Took too much time deleting. Now I get stuff that's screened.

A friend sends it to a friend, who relays what he thinks I'd like.

The originator is a guy named Dale, who puts this quote on everything he sends: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take away everything you have." -Thomas Jefferson.

• The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.

• What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?

• If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is she homeless, or naked?

• If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent.?

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The lot our house is on just under three acres. When a neighbor put the adjacent, same size lot on the market, we bought it to "control" our neighbors.

I did the same thing in 1973 when Hazel and I didn't even want to think about such a purchase, bought four adjoining cemetery lots.

I was still concerned about our neighbors.

Jim Sherman, Sr. is president of Sherman Publications, Inc. He has penned "Jim's Jottings" since 1955.